A trailer from the first episode of the second half of Doctor Who Season 6 called Let’s Kill Hitler: enjoy!
In movies, Limitless is a driving story of artificially boosted intelligence, and what the implications might be. I loved this one in the theaters, and ordinarily it would get my vote for top pick, but also out this week is the live action version of Tekken.
In TV, the choice release is Doctor Who: Series Six, Part One. I am not in favor of the new trend of releasing half a season of a program at a time because they try to use it to raise the prices, but sometimes you can find some good deals on these, and this is one of those times. Plus, it’s Doctor Who, so I would be picking it up regardless. Also out this week, Torchwood: The Complete Original UK Series, packaging up the first two seasons with the miniseries Children of Earth into a single box set. If you bought the seasons separately, there doesn’t seem to be a lot new here; while they mention 10 hours of bonus features, that was about what you had on the original single season DVDs when you added them up, and no where does the BBC say if they are new features or the old ones recycled.
In Anime, Queens Blade 2: Evil Eye Series Part 2 continues the battle royal to determine the new ruler, as well as the practice of selling series in half-season chunks. And in classic re-releases, Gungrave – The Complete Series makes Gungrave affordable in a single box set; around $26 with a little shopping around.
The band is called Chameleon Circuit, and their music is all about Doctor Who. The first song in this sample set is Type 40, which is all about the Tardis itself, and the second is An Awful Lot of Running Around, which is pretty much the Companions job description.
It looks like the official props crew of the BBC, and the BBC itself, have now licensed for sale Official Daleks. They are full sized replicas built from the same moulds and specifications used to create the ones you see on TV, and if they seem a bit pricey at £3,000 (just under $5,000), remember that each one is hand-built to order. Being the same as the TV versions, you can not ride around in them like cars, but you can wear them like costumes if you crouch down and manipulate the transport directly (foot powered). Thanks to the folks at io9 for the heads up on this one.
This may be the best fan-made Anime I have ever seen, and certainly the best Doctor Who fan built Anime. We are talking Classic and Retro here; the Doctor in this one is Jon Pertwee, and the Master is Roger Delgado, using some excellently edited sound bytes from the 1970s episodes. On the Anime side, Bubblegum Crisis, Dirty Pair, and Macross all contributed to the animation style, although I don’t speak quite enough Japanese yet to vouch for the Nihongo quotes (but I expect they are as well done). I do suspect a lot of them are from those series, which puts our Doctor Who influences from the 70s and our Anime influences from the 80s, and gives us a nice familiar jumping off point to explore this totally new combo creation from them. Did I mention this may be the best fan-made Anime I have ever seen? It even uses the old-school minimal animation sequences with the modern flash minimal animation sequences. They may sound the same, but you create them using totally different techniques. Thanks OtaKing 77077, also known as Paul Johnson for creating this incredible animation!! He has a number of Tutorial animation videos as well, you should watch them all!
I recommend watching it full screen, in case you were wondering: it is just that good.
BBC Radio 4 is replaying the three Torchwood episodes that preceded Children of Earth this week in their Afternoon Play segment. That means that on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 14:15 GMT (that’s 2:15PM London time) you can listen to them in real time, and probably play them back for the 6 days after that. Note that this is on BBC Radio 4 proper, rather than BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7). Over on that channel we have Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama on Sunday, and another brand new Doctor Who story, The Whispering Forest, with Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough joining Davison’s Doctor. That one started yesterday, but you have 5 more days to listen to the first episode, with the story continuing Monday.